Communication, training, support, and change management. Business Readiness is a new term and encompasses components that are familiar to learning and development. However, look it up on Google, Wikipedia, or other search engines and it\'s not there. At least not in the way we have been talking about it. Why? Is it because it is so new and the components such as change management, communications, training and end user support are typically run by project managers? Or are they? How do you, as a learning professional, affect these components? You\'ll explore how the direction and guidance you provide in these areas affect overall projects and success of new processes, ERP roll outs and training delivery in your organization.

1. Putting the “Ready” in Business Readiness
Learning Objectives
• Concept and components of Business Readiness
• Use the tools and resources to support each component
• Plan BR for major rollouts in your organization

2. Who am I?
Darren Nerland
Manager Learning and Development
@dnerland
#learning3

3. When things go bad…
• People have long memories and hang
on to examples of projects that are
executed poorly.
• Costs go up, trust goes down.
• Future projects will be affected.

4. 5 components of Business Readiness
• Vision
• Communications
• Training
• Support
• Documentation

5. Business Readiness in the Real World
Commitment
Acceptance
Dissent Commitment
Understanding
Emotional
Intensity Awareness
Resistance Acceptance
Time

6. Time to “change” things up a bit!
How can we
work differently?

7. Vision and Impact

9. Communications

10. Make your communications highly effective
• Think strategically.
• What are the organizational politics?
• Evaluate and refine.
• Many communication vehicles, one consistent
message.

11. Communication examples
We recognize that this has been a challenging
time for many of you and we are working quickly
to improve your experience working in the
system.
In the meantime, I ask for your continued
feedback.
With the capabilities of our new system, we are
making progress toward the strategic vision to
make informed, timely decisions and to work
effectively.

12. Communication examples

13. Training

14. Design training to focus on learning retention
90%
75%
50%
20% 30%
5% 10%
National Training Laboratories in Bethel, Maine

15. Support

16. Robust and sustainable support model
• Service desk and/or subject matter experts to help.
• Knowledge base and ticketing systems to track.
• Permanent home for training materials, documentation, and
support information.

17. Documentation

18. Provide documentation to support learning retention
• Materials and content.
• Complete, cohesive set that complements training materials.
• Centrally located, easy to access, multiple entry points.
Before… After…

19. Documentation examples
Before…
After…

20. The results of doing it right
• A Clear Vision &
Impact Assessment
• Great Communications
• World Class Training
• Superb Documentation
• Ongoing Support

21. Thank You!
http://www.slideshare.net/dnerland
@dnerland

22. Appendix
Definitions, Samples, Templates

23. Business Readiness Core Functions
 Stakeholder Management – understand „who‟ our stakeholders are and be smart about how we communicate with them.
Be aware of the difference between a Stakeholder and a subject matter expert.
 Communications – develop unique ways to communicate with stakeholders. Need to grab their attention and understand
who is engaged and who is not engaged. This integrates with Stakeholder Management.
 Organizational Strategy – includes role design and system security alignment based off org assessment. Findings
should be captured, documented and shared as „Gotchas‟, „Interesting Artifacts‟, „Key Learnings‟, etc. This should be
done simultaneously with other org work.
 Impact Assessment – understand how specific stakeholder groups will be impacted. Ensure that fact vs. opinion is
made apparent and justified.
 Training – should be simplistic and effective. An idea on course design is creating role based and “nugget” courses.
Role based is targeted on the top 5 processes that a user must learn. Nugget based is more pre and post Instructor Lead
Training (ILT) sessions. It entails the tasks that are easy to learn or not done frequently. Need to prioritize and consider
the 80/20 rule.
 Performance Support – an area closely related to training. As training is designed, performance support design should
be included as well. Make sure all of the right players (e.g. Service Desk) are on board and processes are agreed upon
with foundation staff. The heavy production support resource element should be considered from the time of
deployment to about 2 months after to ensure things are up and running smoothly.
 Deployment – logistics need to be outlined in detail. Support should continue and be planned for after deployment. In
order to track metrics properly, deployment tracking processes should be planned during the build and test phases.
 Business Readiness – PMO should have a lot of involvement and ownership in this area. Objective and subjective
metrics need to be identified and outlined to track if the business is ready for go-live.

24. Business Readiness Deliverables
Plan Analyze Design Build Test Deploy
Communications
 Communications  Communications  Communications  Communications  Communications  Communications Plan
Plan Plan Plan Plan (focus on org Plan (focus on org (focus on deployment)
 Project Portal & role) & role and training)  Post deployment
(External) feedback tools
 New Joiner Packet  Communications
Playbook
 As-Is organization  Finalized As-Is  Role-to-business  Org transition  Org transition  Org transition
and skill organization and skill process mapping materials materials materials
 To-Be org structure  Role-to-user  Role-to-user  Role-to-user
Org/Role
assessment assessment
 Detailed org structure and role design mapping mapping mapping
and role impact  Finalized org  HR impacts  HR impacts  HR impacts
assessment impacts and skills
 Role design gap analysis
 Training &  Skills gap analysis  Training & perf.  Training &  Test training (dry  Deliver training
Performance  Training & Performance support design performance supt runs)  Go-live support
Training & Perf.
Support Blueprint Support Strategy  Training materials  Train the trainer  Post go-live support
 Determine training implementation plan  Training support  Schedule training
development tools  Training standards and maintenance
and procedures plan
 Train on training dev
tool
Stakeholder Mgmt
 Stakeholder analysis  Stakeholder analysis  Stakeholder analysis  Stakeholder  Stakeholder  Stakeholder
 Business readiness analysis analysis analysis
approach  Business readiness  Business readiness  Business readiness
 Schedule prototype measurement measurement measurement
and gather feedback tool(s) tool(s) tool(s)
 Deployment plan  Deployment plan  Deployment plan